"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

October 15, 2010

Don't panic

Either cable-chat hysteria has infected the Times' resident Tea Party analyst, Kate Zernike, or she was momentarily seized by sensationalist urges. But one thing is certain. "Carry out" has no journalistic business in the following passage:

With a little more than two weeks till Election Day, 33 Tea Party-backed candidates are in tossup races or running in House districts that are solidly or leaning Republican, and 8 stand a good or better chance of winning Senate seats.

While the numbers are relatively small, they could exert outsize influence, putting pressure on Republican leaders to carry out promises to significantly cut spending and taxes, to repeal health care legislation and financial regulations passed this year, and to phase out Social Security and Medicare in favor of personal savings accounts.

What Ms. Zernike meant to say in all seriousness, I'm sure, is that Republican leaders will be under pressure to make flashy attempts at carrying out cuts in spending, the repeal of health care legislation, and so on, but all such attempts would unquestionably die short of President Obama's veto pen. That is, they wouldn't even survive the morbidly dysfunctional Senate, where, even assuming an unlikely GOP-recapture, Democrats would -- and here we'd have a happy turning of the tables -- filibuster them to an early expiration.

Which is to suggest or warn that cable-news hallucinations are endangering clear thought, even at the normally clear-thinking Times.

My worry is not a matter of underestimating the Tea Party's diseased influence on the GOP Establishment, the latter of which was already well on its way to depraved indifference to rationality, but rather of overestimating its realistic influence on long-term policy. Simply and reasonably put, it won't have any -- short of House-floor tantrums, legislative bomb-throwing, non-appropriation of funds, and brief spells of government shutdown. I know, that sounds like a lot. But its duration would be for, maybe, two years, which is decidedly short-term, after which an appalled electorate would redeem themselves.

Meanwhile, however, cable-news chatter in the form of MSNBC's evening lineup has proclaimed, through oppressive implication and rather contemptible generalizations, the Tea Party's unrivaled ascendancy and thus the nation's certain doom. On "The Ed Show" last night, for instance, the host had located one Tea Party candidate whose medieval hankering is to abolish public education; hence, according to Ed, such is now one unshakable part of the GOP's official platform. Good grief.

On MSNBC we witness untrammeled hysteria virtually all hour, whichever hour, excluding the now-sane! Chris Matthews' and sober Lawrence O'Donnell's. Even though Bozo himself would have a better chance through a last-minute write-in campaign of winning Delaware's open Senate seat, Keith Olbermann devotes endless airtime to the demented vagaries and spooky ruminations of Christine O'Donnell as a potential U.S. senator. Rachel Maddow then sarcastically cries "Boo!" at everything that sidewinds rightward, as though the barbarians are not only at the gate but well through it.

I suppose these ceaseless hysterics keep the ratings and ad revenue up, but they also most assuredly keep the audience's progressive spirits down; they present a gross and even hopeless distortion of the political playing field. And depression kills turnout.

Reread, please, the fact-checked portion of Zernike: "33 Tea Party-backed candidates are in tossup races or running in House districts that are solidly or leaning Republican, and 8 stand a good or better chance of winning Senate seats." Out of 535.

That may be 33 + 8 too many, but that's hardly an invasion of the mind-snatchers. And they, too, shall pass.

Comments

Don't panic

Either cable-chat hysteria has infected the Times' resident Tea Party analyst, Kate Zernike, or she was momentarily seized by sensationalist urges. But one thing is certain. "Carry out" has no journalistic business in the following passage:

With a little more than two weeks till Election Day, 33 Tea Party-backed candidates are in tossup races or running in House districts that are solidly or leaning Republican, and 8 stand a good or better chance of winning Senate seats.

While the numbers are relatively small, they could exert outsize influence, putting pressure on Republican leaders to carry out promises to significantly cut spending and taxes, to repeal health care legislation and financial regulations passed this year, and to phase out Social Security and Medicare in favor of personal savings accounts.

What Ms. Zernike meant to say in all seriousness, I'm sure, is that Republican leaders will be under pressure to make flashy attempts at carrying out cuts in spending, the repeal of health care legislation, and so on, but all such attempts would unquestionably die short of President Obama's veto pen. That is, they wouldn't even survive the morbidly dysfunctional Senate, where, even assuming an unlikely GOP-recapture, Democrats would -- and here we'd have a happy turning of the tables -- filibuster them to an early expiration.

Which is to suggest or warn that cable-news hallucinations are endangering clear thought, even at the normally clear-thinking Times.

My worry is not a matter of underestimating the Tea Party's diseased influence on the GOP Establishment, the latter of which was already well on its way to depraved indifference to rationality, but rather of overestimating its realistic influence on long-term policy. Simply and reasonably put, it won't have any -- short of House-floor tantrums, legislative bomb-throwing, non-appropriation of funds, and brief spells of government shutdown. I know, that sounds like a lot. But its duration would be for, maybe, two years, which is decidedly short-term, after which an appalled electorate would redeem themselves.

Meanwhile, however, cable-news chatter in the form of MSNBC's evening lineup has proclaimed, through oppressive implication and rather contemptible generalizations, the Tea Party's unrivaled ascendancy and thus the nation's certain doom. On "The Ed Show" last night, for instance, the host had located one Tea Party candidate whose medieval hankering is to abolish public education; hence, according to Ed, such is now one unshakable part of the GOP's official platform. Good grief.

On MSNBC we witness untrammeled hysteria virtually all hour, whichever hour, excluding the now-sane! Chris Matthews' and sober Lawrence O'Donnell's. Even though Bozo himself would have a better chance through a last-minute write-in campaign of winning Delaware's open Senate seat, Keith Olbermann devotes endless airtime to the demented vagaries and spooky ruminations of Christine O'Donnell as a potential U.S. senator. Rachel Maddow then sarcastically cries "Boo!" at everything that sidewinds rightward, as though the barbarians are not only at the gate but well through it.

I suppose these ceaseless hysterics keep the ratings and ad revenue up, but they also most assuredly keep the audience's progressive spirits down; they present a gross and even hopeless distortion of the political playing field. And depression kills turnout.

Reread, please, the fact-checked portion of Zernike: "33 Tea Party-backed candidates are in tossup races or running in House districts that are solidly or leaning Republican, and 8 stand a good or better chance of winning Senate seats." Out of 535.

That may be 33 + 8 too many, but that's hardly an invasion of the mind-snatchers. And they, too, shall pass.